Note:
some of the language, references & attitudes, while acceptable at the time they
were written, are not Politically Correct, today.

Summary:

No
official summary was ever provided with any of the old Tom Swift books. However,
without giving too much away, the plot can be summed up as follows:

Mr. Damon
is up to his old tricks. The story opens with a bang, or rather a crash, as he
lands his new Butterfly-style airplane on the roof of Tom's office.
Otherwise, this is a straightforward tale of industrial espionage and theft. Tom
has enough valuables in the form of blueprints, formulae and models lying around
his office, that he is becoming concerned someone might steal them. He has
constructed a large, heavy, brass-bound Oak chest to keep his goodies in until a
proper underground vault can be built. Koku the giant, is posted as guard. The
chest is heavy, but not heavy enough. Tom suffers the usual "cowardly blow" in
mid-story, and wakes from the aftereffects to find his possessions, the chest
and his giant manservant all missing. What a revolting development this is!

How these
problems are resolved, you will have to locate a hard cover copy of the book to
find out.

I
have been unable to find this story on line. Sorry.

Cast of
Characters (More or less in order of appearance)

Koku-Giant
manservant of Tom. Devoted, loyal, and possessed of great strength, but
apparently somewhat limited cognitive facilities. Described as "savage and only
half-tame," he is antagonist and rival of Eradicate. In this episode, his great
strength is highlighted and put to great use.

Ned Newton-Chum
& companion of Tom. No description given. He has resumed his position as Swifts'
financial advisor and CFO (Treasurer) of Swift Construction Company. He
is the voice of caution regarding Tom's expenditures, sometimes obnoxiously so.
In the last several tales, he is doom-and-gloom and sarcastic.

Tom Swift-Intrepid
inventor & mechanic. Plucky, lively, resourceful, brave and clever.
Home-schooled at a college level by his father, Barton Swift. Athlete and
hunter. Familiar with how to stalk game and firearms. Loves all things
mechanical. In this tale we find he is fit, tanned and does not smoke cigars.

Mr.
Wakefield Damon-Elderly
& eccentric adventurer whose main purpose in life seems to be blessing everybody
and everything near his person. Never fully described, except as "portly" with a
moustache and "tortoise-shell glasses." Appears to be quite wealthy. Has once
again taken up his old hobby of wrecking transportation conveyances.

Garrett Jackson-No
description given, but is spry and fit for his age. (Original volumes described
him as "aged.") Swift Construction Shop Manager/General Foreman.

Eradicate
Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Sampson, A.K.A. Rad-Aged stereotypical Negro manservant.
"Eradicates dirt." Eradicate has now "become too old to do much," As described,
he now has "white hair in a fringe and is bald on top..." He remains faithful to
Tom and helps out where he can. Constant rival and antagonist of giant Koku. I
envision a skinny Uncle Remus.

Barton
Swift-Widower.
Wealthy and conservative. Inventor, master machinist and holder of numerous
patents. In this episode, he is described simply as old. Mr. Swift, has
enjoyed improved health of late, and is now working on a book about inventing.
We also find he wears glasses. Not surprising for someone of his advanced years.

Mr. (Noname)
Newton-Ned's
father. NFN or description. Employed by National Investments Company of
Shopton, is accused of stealing Liberty Bonds. First major part in these tales,
but no name, description or character development is provided by the author.

Renwick
Fawn-Well
dressed, go-fast managerial type. Walks with alimp and "throws out his
left elbow when he walks." Anyone who remembers Walter Brennan in The Real
McCoys television show will recognize this gait. Bad guy.

Ivan
Barsky-Large
bushy-bearded "Russian" pattern-maker and mechanic. Truly fractures his English
with a fake Russian accent. Later found to be one (Noname) Blodgett, ringleader
of an industrial espionage gang (See Gang of ?, below.)

The
Nocturnal Listener-Generic
window-peeper.Never identified, and has no actual part in the story.
Shopton (or at least the Swift household) seems to have a plague of these
critters. I'd consider a large dog or a trench under the outside library
windows.

Dirk, the
Mechanic-Generic
Swift employee.No name or description. Walk-on part.

Miss Mary
Nestor-Betrothed
love interest of Tom who lives on the east side of Shopton. Described as a "very
pretty young woman with flashing brown eyes, and a sweet trilling laugh."
Blushes easily, especially around Tom. Also described as "plucky."

The Lunch
Bunch-Three
of the Gang of ? No names or descriptions. Walk-on parts.

Mr. (Amos) Nestor-Mary's
father. In spite of major roles in several of these adventures, his description
is never given, and his first name was only mentioned in passing, in episodes #1
and #6. Walk-on part in this tale.

Mrs. (Amos) Nestor-Mary's
mother. In spite of major roles in several of these adventures, her description
is never given, and her first name is never mentioned. The only thing known
about her is that she is a good cook and wife, caring deeply for her husband,
and is more or less helpless without a man around to take care of her. Walk-on
part in this tale.

Mrs. Baggert-Swift's aged
housekeeper. In this tale, she rattles around trying to dose Tom's father with
catnip tea.

Dr. Clayton-
NFN or description. Ministers to Tom's Dad after a blow to the head. Walk-on
part. Shopton is apparently full of doctors who never work twice in these tales.

The Red Headed Rogue-Later
found to be Ivan Barsky/Blodgett without the wig & false beard. Can't be a
Russian-We don't run to red hair.

Gang of ? Merry Masked Marauders-Cohorts
of Blodgett and Fawn. Industrial spies and extortionists. Variously described as
being eight, seven, five and three in number. Generic bad-guys that come and go,
as needed to fill out the story.

Mrs. (Noname) Fawn-Small,
pale, timid, and unimpressive. Later found to be victim of domestic violence at
the hands of husband Renwick.

The Hummer aircraft is
introduced, and then discarded. Small and speedy 2-seater. Fly-on part. No
bearing on the details of the plot except as a transportation prop. Burned up in
a forest fire. See Attitudes. May be a
partial/corrupt memory of Humming Bird aircraft.

The Black Bird is introduced.
Fly-on part. The main bearing on the details of the plot is its' use as heavy
lifter and transportation prop. Described as "large," it seats 4, or three, if
one of the occupants is Koku.

The Blue Bird is the bad
guys' getaway plane. Really big, as it seats 8 plus carries a
multi-hundred pound chest. Can they be all bad if they name their
aircraft so innocuously???

Numerous gadgets are spoken of, but
none play even a passing role in the story, except as filler (in blueprint form)
for the chest. There is a "tidal engine" used to harness wave power, an
automatic railroad train brake that is applied by track signals, the gyroscope
air flier, and a "mammoth telescope" which is realized 11 years into the future
in Vol. # 39 of the series. (This is remarkable planning at G&D, if the idea
really was in the files for possible future stories...)

Commentary on Society, Attitudes, Environment &
Errata

It's amazing how much technology and society have changed. As with Great
Oil Gusher, this particular old Tom Swift Sr. episode has little to do with
actual invention(s) and much more with personalities and social conflict rather
than any gadgets. Society's attitudes (or at least the authors') are changing,
constantly, too. I wonder what people will be taking for granted 100 years from
now, and what they will think of our "modern" society and its' mores (or lack
of them...)

Attitudes and Prejudices-It is said
that Tom possessed large denomination cash that was yellowish in color. This was
probably some of the following:

National Gold Notes - There were two factors that held
heavily in the creation of National Gold Notes which originated exclusively from
banks in California. As the gold rush of the 1840's bought massive amounts of
this metal out of the ground and into barter, it rapidly found its way into
coinage. California banks being so inundated with both raw gold and gold coins,
it petitioned the government for the authority to issue Gold Notes that could be
substituted for the actual coinage. It was on July 12, 1870 that Congress voted
giving the right to issue such notes to nine banks in California and Kidder
National Gold Bank in Boston. However, while Californians rushed to print this
yellow-toned paper, no such effort was ever undertaken by the Boston
counterpart.

This and 4 other types of Technicolor "artsy" cash certificates were in
circulation at the time of the story. Denominations were in the form of $1, $2,
$5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000. The notes were huge.
The visual, above is about 2/3 actual size. The popular "greenback" in its
smaller current size did not become de rigueur until after 1928.

Mary Nestor and airplanes-This girl will be the death of Our Hero. She has
the unique ability to cause aircraft motors to stop running and levers and other
parts of the plane to break or malfunction. In this tale, the motor quits while
she and Tom are joyriding over (of all things) a forest fire. Their conveyance
becomes toast, and they have to hole-up (literally) in a cave to avoid becoming
crispy critters, themselves. There's also the issue of breathing-even in a cave,
unless it were very deep, they would suffocate, since the fire would consume all
the local oxygen, and superheat the remaining inert gasses..

Ford (as in Henry) is mentioned twice in the tale, once in reference to his
farm tractor, and again later with reference to the "Tin Lizzie" Model-T auto.
Tom thinks it would be unwise to go head-to-head with him in business matters,
as he (Ford) "already has much of the market sewed up."

On p167 Koku goes armed with a rifle when a burglar alarm is set off.
Considering his recent more-than-usual bloodthirsty attitude and repeated
threats of "death to Tom's enemies," I wonder if this is wise.

In spite of the above item, the overall attitude in the story is pacifist,
and this is an important clew (the old spelling is now being used, again)
as to the identity of the author. Piazza is also used, but I think this
term has now been adopted by more than one author. Another important factor is
the geographical descriptions of the landscape around Shopton. See Geography, below.

Errata-there
is a running gag throughout this series. Mr. Damon's home keeps flip-flopping
between Waterford and Waterfield, NY. Sometimes it is in neither,
and several times in both places, at once. This is partly due to the enforced
poor communication amongst the many ghostwriters at G&D that contributed to this
series.

There are now 4 distinct categories. In this
tome Mr. D's home is in Waterford.

The tally for 28 volumes, to date is:

Waterfield-13, Both
places-2, Waterford-8, and Neither place-5.

Typos and malapropisms were minimal. Blodgett's name was spelled both with
and without the final "t" on p85. That was it.

Tom flies through a thunder storm in his lacquer painted wood and canvas
kite. That he survived, I expect, is Engineering
Fantasy. It certainly was an Error
in judgment, so I put the comment about it here. Old pilots get to be that way
by avoiding thunder storms, (or forest fires) not by going thru them.

Speaking of airplanes, it is said Koku cannot fly the Black Bird. It
is specifically stated that he was taught to fly a biplane, in Vol #16 Giant
Cannon. Maybe he forgot how?

Engineering
and Science, Fact vs. Fantasy-The
Gang of ? makes their getaway from the Swift works in a generic touring car. At
that point in the story, it is said there are eight of them. Eight men at a
conservative average of 150# each, plus 400# Koku, plus a 250# chest totals
up to a one-ton load. Boy, they don't make cars like that, today! The average
full-size SUV is technically "overloaded" with just 4 passengers and vacation
luggage. (Check the sticker in the glove box, if you don't believe me!)

Better living through chemistry
is what DuPont used as their marketing slogan. Whatever the drug that was used
on Koku was, it worked Hollywood fast and thoroughly well. For all his ferocity,
this giant is getting downright unreliable as a watchman.

Tom's
father wishes he could see the perp (See Vol. #17 Photo Telephone) when
he gets a phone call from the bad-guys that stole the his son's chest. He seems
to have forgotten the special "Selenium sending plate," bright lights and 3-wire
hookup needed at the other end to make the device transmit a picture.

Geography-There
is now, no longer any place close to Nestors' house to land a plane. Shopton
must be growing at a fantastic rate-or Tom's repeated ups and downs have caused
laws to be passed regulating such things. Lake Carlopa has returned, with
a landmark called Chestnut Point. The topography of 1920's upstate New
York, remains consistent, with some pretty desolate wooded country (Adirondack
Mountains) being described west of Shopton.